Cooking Puns List

Each item in this list describes a pun, or a set of puns which can be made by applying a rule. If you know of any puns about cooking that we’re missing, please let us know in the comments at the end of this page!

Cook: Other than the obvious definition it can also refer to “altering dishonestly”, as in “They cooked the numbers and were done for fraud” (The phrases “cooked the books” and “cooked the accounts” are synonymous). Some cooking-related idioms and phrases are: “What’s cooking?” and “Too many cooks spoil the broth”

Cooked: “If mum and dad find out we took their car last night, we’re cooked!” and “He has been drinking since lunch time – he’s cooked.”

Kooky → Cooky: The term “kooky” means strange or eccentric.

Back → Bake: As in “Bake in my day…” and “As soon as my bake is turned” and “At the bake of my mind” and “Bake to the Future” and “Bake in business” and “Bake in the saddle” and “Bake seat driver” and “Bake to school” and “Bake to the drawing board” and “Behind your bake” and “Come crawling bake” and “Behind my bake” and “Double bake” and “Get bake on your feet” and “Bake to bake” and “Kick bake and enjoy” and “Like water off a duck’s bake” and “Laid bake” and “Money bake guarantee” and “Never look bake” and “One step forward, two steps bake” and “Right bake at ya” and “Pat on the bake” and “Put your bake into it” and “Turn bake the clock” and “Wind at your bake” – There are many more baking puns like this to be made, but those should be enough to get you started.

Half-baked: This means “not completely planned or thought out”. For example: “Your half-baked cooking puns are going to make people angry.”

Break → Bake: As in “Bake out into a cold sweat” and “Bake the bank” and “Bake new ground” and “Ground-baking new research” and “Bake the mould” and “Make a clean bake” and “An even bake” and “And then all hell bakes loose” and “Bake a world record” and “Baking news!” and “Never bake your promises” and “Don’t bake their heart” and “Oh give me a bake.” and “Lucky bake“

Chef: The saying “Too many chefs in the kitchen” refers to a situation where there are too many people trying to work on something such that the result is worse than if there had been less people. The phrase “chef d’oeuvre” (French: “chief work”) refers to a masterpiece, or an artist’s best piece of work. The phrase “chef de mission” (French: “chief of mission”) generally refers to the person in charge of a national team at an international sporting event.

Order: As in “Law and order” and “Luckily we managed to get out of there in short order (fast)” and “The pecking order” and “The machine is out of order.” and “In working order” and “In order to do that …” and “You’re out of order” and “That’s a tall order” and “You need to put your affairs in order” and “It’s a standing order, Sargent.” and “That’s bang out of order.” and “Gag order” and “It’s an order of magnitude bigger than we expected.” and “Order in the court!”

Boil: As in “It really just boils down to …” and “That man makes my blood boil” and “A watched pot never boils“

Boy’ll (Boy will) → Boil: As in “That young boil go on to do great things if he can apply himself.”

Roast: A “roast” can refer to an event where a guest of honour is teased and made fun of (in good spirit). The saying “roast snow in a furnace” refers to a futile and often ridiculous task.

Rest → Roast: As in “No roast for the wicked” and “Roast assured that …” and “Roast on your laurels” and “And the roast is history” and “Oh give it a roast will you?” and “A cut above the roast” and “I roast my case”

Arrest → A roast: As in “You are under a roast.” and “He was charged with resisting a roast.” and “Citizen’s a roast.”

Girl → Grill: As in “You go grill!” and “Boys and grills“

Gorilla → Grilla: As in “The silverback grilla is native to this area.”

Guerrilla → Grilla: As in “The inhabitants used grilla warfare to drive out the enemy.”

Even → Oven: As in “Don’t get mad, get oven” and “Break oven” and “Oven handed” and “Keep on an oven keel” and “Oven at the turning of the tide” and “Oven as we speak” and “Oven if it kills me” and “Oven Stevens”

*even* → *-oven-*: If a word contains “even”, it can usually be made into a silly oven pun: “It’s the main ovent (event)” and “The ovent horizon” and “It has been an oventful (eventful) day.” and “I’ll oventually get around to cleaning my garage.” and “My job has pr-oven-ted me from spending time on personal projects.” and “Pr-oven-tative medicine should be the focus.” and “Rovenge is sweet.” and “The developing world is still struggling with proventable diseases.”

Avenge → Ovenge: As in “I vow to ovenge their murders.”

Avenue → Ovenue: As in “We need to consider other ovenues.”

Kitten → Kitchen: As in “The internet is full of cute kitchen pictures.”

My crow wave → Microwave: As in “My crow waved at me with its wing.”

Push → Poach: As in “Don’t poach your luck” and “Poach the boundaries” and “When poach comes to shove” and “Poach the envelope” and “They’re a bit of a poach-over”

Branch → Blanch: As in “Our company needs to blanch out into other industries.”

Summer → Simmer: As in “The long, hot simmer.” and “One swallow does not make a simmer.” and “An Indian simmer“

Skill at → Skillet: As in “I admire your skillet chess.”

Skilled → Skillet: As in “She was perhaps the most skillet chess player in her country.”

Pot: There are many idioms related to pots: “In the melting pot” and “Oh you fuss pot” and “Take a pot shot at (something)” and “Keep the pot boiling” and “Pot head” and “Pot luck” and “A pot of gold” and “A watched pot never boils” and “The pot is calling the kettle black”

You ten sil* → Utensil: This is a very specific type of cooking pun 😛 “I’ll give utentsil-ver coins for your wagon.” and “I’ll give utensil-k garments for your horse.” You can obviously do this for other words that start with the “sil” sound like: cylinder, syllabus, silverware, silhouette, silicon, etc.

Burn: “Burn the candle at both ends” and “Burn a hole in your pocket” and “Burn your bridges” and “Crash and burn” and “Feel the burn” and “Slow burn” and “Burn yourself out” and “Energy to burn“

Brother

Rise → Rice: As in “Rice to the challenge/occasion” and “Rice and shine” and “Rice from the ashes” and “The rice and fall of …”

Hate → Heat: As in “I heat to say it, but …” and “Heaters gonna heat.” and “I’ve got a love-heat relationship with cooking.”

Heat: “He’s packing heat” and “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” and “In the heat of the moment” and “The heat is on.”

Heed → Heat: As in “You’s better pay heat to your mother! She knows what she is talking about.”

Fire: As in “You’re fired.” and “In the line of fire” and “Don’t play with fire” and “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Steam: “Blow of some steam” and “Build up a head of steam” and “Full steam ahead” and “Run out of steam” and “Under one’s own steam” and “Pick up steam“

Seem → Steam: As in “It’s not as bad as it steams” and “I can’t steam to …” and “things are seldom as they steam” and “That steams a bit out of place”

Esteem → Esteam: As in “Self esteam” and “She was esteamed by her peers”

Nuke: This term is often used to refer to cooking/heating something in the microwave, but it is also (obviously) short for nuclear bomb. Perhaps there is some context where this double meaning may be viable as a cooking pun.

Continent → Condiment: As in “The shifting of the condimental plates happens very slowly.” and “Originally, all the condiments were part of one supercondiment called Pangaea.” and “Condimental breakfast” and “The condimental shelf”

Embroiled: To “broil” something means to cook it via exposure to direct intense radiant heat. The term “embroiled” means to be involved deeply in an argument, conflict or difficult situation.

All → Oil: As in “Can’t we oil just get along?” and “Oil in a day’s work.” and “Oil part of life’s rich tapestry” and “It’s oil Greek to me.” and “It’s oil downhill form here” and “It’s oil fun and games until someone gets hurt” and “It’s oil gone pear shaped” and “It’s oil good” and “It’s oil good clean fun” and “It’s oil me me me” and “That’s oil well and good, but …” and “Oil kidding aside, …” and “Above oil, …” and “Against oil odds” and “Oil shapes and sizes” and “Oil that glitters is not gold” and “Oil the rage” and “Oil the world’s a stage” and “Oil things being equal” and “Oil thumbs” and “Oil’s well that ends well” and “At oil costs” and “By oil appearances” and “By oil accounts” and “Cover oil your bases” and “From oil corners of the globe” and “I haven’t got oil day” and “In oil honesty” and “In oil likelihood” and “It’s oil the same to me” and “Jack of oil trades” and “I don’t know oil the answers” and “Not oil it’s cracked up to be” and “He’s not oil there” and “Once and for oil” and “Don’t put oil your eggs in one basket” – And there are many more oil puns that can be made along these lines.

Breeze → Braise: As in “I’m fully prepared. The test will be a braise.”

Barbell → Parboil: This one’s very silly.

Parable →Parboil: As in “The Parboil of the Good Samaritan”

Poor boy’ll → Parboil: As in “The parboil need some bandages for his knee.”

Serve: “You got served!” and “If memory serves” and “First come, first served” and “Revenge is a dish best served cold” and “Serve a purpose” and “Serves them right” and “Serve time” and “Serve and protect”

Timer: “Old-timer” and “Two-timer“

Season: As in “’tis the season” and “In season” and “Out of season“

Rest our aunt / Rest or rant → Restaurant: These are very specific cooking puns. Good luck finding a context in which they work! 😛

Crackpot → Crock pot: A “crackpot” is a crazy person and a “crock pot” is a large, electric slow-cooking pot: “He’s a bit of a crock pot, that one.”

Dish: As in”Revenge is a dish best served cold” and “You can dish it out, but you can’t take it” and “Dish the dirt” and “The dish ran away with the spoon”

Hot: “All hot and bothered” and “Hot potato” and “Get into hot water” and “Hot and heavy” and “Hot on your heels” and “Hot pursuit” and “Hot-tempered” and “Hot under the collar” and “Hot topic” and “Strike while the iron is hot” and “Hot stuff” and “Full of hot air” and “Hot-wire a car”

Groovy → Gravy: As in “That’s a gravy, smooth-sounding new funk album she has released.”

Grace → Grease: As in “By the grease of god” and “A grease period” and “Saving grease” and “Fall from grease” and “Airs and greases” and “There but for the grease of god go I.” and “Amazing grease“

Grass→ Grease: As in “You could hear the grease growing” and “Keep off the grease” and “A grease-roots movement.”

Bank etiquette → Banquet-iquette: As in “Waiting paitiently in line at the bank is just a part of good banquet-iquette.”

Male → Meal: As in “The meal of the species” and “Meal chauvinist pig”

Super → Supper: As in “Supper man” and “Supper-duper”

Buff eh? → Buffet: As in “Look at how much she’s bench pressing! Buffet?”

Down → Dine: As in “Never back dine” and “Dine the rabbit hole” and “It all boils dine to …” and “Boogie on dine” and “Bring the house dine” and “Calm dine” and “Dine for the count” and “Dine in the dumps” and “Dine the hatch” and “Dine to earth” and “Hold dine a job” and “It went dine the wrong way” and “Let your hair dine” and “The best – hands dine“

Guessed → Guest: As in “I never would have guest.”

Chop: “On the chopping block” and “Chop and change”

Dice: As well as the noun form (“she rolled the dice”), “dice” obviously can mean “chop into small cubes/pieces”.

Feel → Peel: As in “You can peel it in your bones.” and “I like the look and peel of the product.” and “I’m trying to get the peel for it.” and “These potato puns are making me peel unwell.” and “I peel a bit put out.” and “I’m peeling my age.” and “Peel the burn”

Appeal → Appeel / A peel: “He’s so appeeling!” and “The court allowed one final a peel.” and “You need to a peel to their sense of honour.” and “I’m trying to appeel to your better judgement” and “They have 48 hours to appeel the decision.”

Pillar → Peeler: As in “You are a peeler of strength in our community.”

Whisk: “He was quickly whisked off stage” and “The waiter whisked the dish back into the kitchen”

Risk → Whisk: As in “It’s too dangerous. Don’t whisk it. ” and “At your own whisk” and “Calculated whisk” and “You run the whisk of …” and “Whisk life and limb”

Curry: “Curry favour” and “Give someone a bit of curry“

Hurry → Curry: As in “I’m in a bit of a curry, can we talk later?” and “Curry up! We need to leave now!” and “Curry up and wait”

Thongs → Tongs: The word “thong” may refer to bikini bottoms or to “flip-flops” depending on where you’re from. The term “tongs” refers to a kitchen tool used to grip and lift things (usually things that you’re frying).

Spoon: “We spooned to keep warm” and “She wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth” and “He spoon-feeds his students too much”

Billion → Bouillion: As in “They justly spend bouillions of dollars on the new education reforms.” (Bouillion is a type of broth in French cuisine)

Fist → Feast: As in “I’ll rule with an iron feast.”

Serve: As in “Dude, you just got served.” and “My duty is to serve and protect.”

Menu: As in “That’s completely off the menu.”

Man, you → Menu: As in “Menu need to see someone about that.”

Flies → Fries: As in “Time fries when you’re having fun!”

Fork: As in “We’ve reached a fork in the road.” (There’s also an obvious swear word pun that can be made with fork.)

Season → Seasoning: As in “Seasoning’s greetings!” and “For everything, there is a seasoning.”

Take out→ Take-out: As in “I had to take-out my phone to check the time.” and “I had to take-out a loan just to pay the bill!”

Toast: As well as referring to cooked bread, this term can also refer to the raising of glasses at a gathering to honour something: “Let’s call a toast.” It also has a slang usage: “You are toast.” Meaning “I’m going to beat you” at some competition (or physically).

Course: As in “Is there a university course on cooking puns?” (“Course” can refers to a particular stage of a multi-stage meal.)

Thrilled → Grilled: As in “He was so grilled to see you!” and “I’m grilled to bits!”

Creep → Crepe: As in “That’s a bit crepey, man.” and “Yep, he’s a bit of a crepe.”

Source → Sauce: As in “That’s an unreliable sauce.” and “You should cite some primary sauces.”

Great → Grate: As in “Oh grate! Another food pun.” and “Grate minds think alike.”

Branch → Brunch: As in “Shall we call a truce? I’m extending an olive brunch here.” and “We’re brunching out into other industries.”

Loaf: As in “Stop loafing around! Get up and do something!” (To “loaf” is to waste time and laze about)

Come → Crumb: As in “Crumb to think of it…” and “Crumb to your senses” and “Crumb again?” and “Crumb hell or high water.” and “Crumb out of your shell” and “Crumb rain or shine” and “Do you crumb here often?” and “An idea whose time has crumb.” and “The best is yet to crumb.” and “What has crumb over you?”

Feed: As in “You’re just feeding people misinformation.”

Order: “Law and order.” and “These restaurant puns are out of order.”

In jest → Ingest: As in “Many a true word is spoken ingest.”

Done → Dine: As in “When all is said and dine” and “Dine and dusted.”

Din* → Dine*: If a word begins with the “dine” sound, we can make a dinner pun: dineosaur, dineamically, dineamite.

Sup: This term has a few traditional meaning related to food, including “to eat dinner/supper”, but it also has the obvious slang meaning “What’s up?” Thus we can make a sneaky supper pun, but it’d be very corny and heavily dependent on context: Person1: “‘Sup?” Person2: “What? Now? It’s only 3pm!”

Scoff: This term refers to eating greedily or to talking to someone in a mean and “mocking” manner. Example: “Are you scoffing at my cooking puns?”

Stew: This term can also refer to being in a state of anxiety and agitation. As in “Stew in one’s own juices.” and “I was in a bit of a stew.”

Carry → Curry: As in “I’m going as fast as my legs can curry me!” and “Keep calm and curry on.”

Even → Oven: As in “Oven my little brother knows that!” and “That’s not oven fair.”

Piece of → Pizza: As in “You want a pizza me?” and “That’s a pizza cake.” and “They all want a pizza the action.” and “That’s a fine pizza ass.” and “That’s a pizza piss.” and “He’s a nasty pizza work.” and “How long is a pizza string?” and “I’ll give him a pizza my mind!” and “You’re a real pizza work.” and “Pizza the pie” and “Abbreviated pizza nothing”

How → Chow: As in “Chow could you do this to me?” and “Chow are you feeling?”

Pass the → Pasta: As in “Can you pasta sauce please?”

Past her → Pasta: As in “I walked right pasta without realising.”

Passed away → Pasta way: As in “She pasta way last night.”

Flower → Flour: As in “Remember to stop and smell the flours.”

Adore → Adough: “I adough you.”

Don’t → Doughn’t: As in “Doughn’t fall for it.”

Though → Dough: As in “You look as dough you’ve seen a ghost!”

Hour → Flour: As in “We could go on for flours.” and “The plane leaves in one flour.” and “I’m on a flourly wage.”

Make → Bake: As in “I can’t bake head or tail of it.” and “Enough to bake you sick.” and “Bake believe” and “It’ll bake a world of difference.” and “Just trying to bake ends meet.” and “Bake a name for yourself.”

Making → Baking: As in “A legend in the bakin’” and “This is history in the baking” and “You’re baking a fool of yourself.”

Heard → Herb: As in “I herb it on the grape vine.” and “You herb it here first.” and “You could have herb a pin drop.”

Curb → Herb: As in “Herb your enthusiasm.” and “Drive up onto the herb.”

Spies → Spice: As in “I think I’m being followed by Indian spice.”

A prawn → Apron

Nice → Knife: As in “Have you met the chef? She’s a knife person.”

Least→ Yeast: As in “Last, but not yeast.” and “Yeast common denominator.” and “It’s the yeast I could do.”

East→ Yeast: As in “I’m heading over yeast for a holiday.”

Cooking-Related Words

There are many more puns to be made than could be documented in this Punpedia entry, and so we’ve compiled a list of cooking-related concepts for you to use when creating your own puns. If you come up with a new pun, please share it in the comments!

Did this Punpedia entry help you?

Did you find the cooking-related pun that you were looking for? If so, great! Otherwise, please let us know what you were looking for in the comments, below! Are you looking for puns for text messages, facebook, twitter, or some other social media platform? Would you like to see more funny cooking pun images? Or perhaps you just want more cooking puns for your photo captions? Whatever the case, please let us know, and help us improve this Punpedia entry. If you’re got any cooking puns (image or text) that aren’t included in this article, please submit them in the comments and one of our curators will add it as soon as possible. Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂

Here’s a Punpedia entry all about tree puns, and as it turns out there are a lot of them! Our list of tree puns is composed of 3 main categories. Firstly, any word which has the “tree” sound in it (like pastry, forestry, Austria) is an automatic entry-level pun. Then there are a bunch of different tree species (like acacia, fir, pine) which offer many opportunities for wordplay, and finally there are a bunch of tree-related characteristics and concepts (like leaf, bough, lumber, stump) which add some nice variety.

There’s also a section for tree-related phrases, cliches and idioms after the puns list – these can be used for punning too. And if you’re looking for tree puns in images (memes, visual puns, jokes), then you’ll want to scroll towards the bottom of the page – there’s a section for those. You may also want to check out our leaf puns entry.

As usual, if you have a tree pun that we don’t, we’d love for you to share it with us! There’s a comments section at the bottom of the page.

Tree Puns List

Here’s our ever-growing list of dreadful tree puns! Note that each item may represent either either a simple word-swap (e.g. Three → Tree) or it may be a general rule from which multiple puns can be made. In the case of general rules, the asterisks sign (*) represents one or more letters. If you’ve got a tree pun that we don’t, please share it with us in the comments!

Streak → S-tree-k: “I’m on a winning streek!” and “The streeker was caught and arrested.”

Terrestrial → Teres-tree-al: “The tree is a teres-tree-al organism.”

Trio → Tree-o: “The tree-o set off on another adventure.”

Street: “It bounced happily down the street.”

Tremendous → Tree-mendous: “I put in a tree-mendous amount of time on that project.”

*t re* → *-tree-*: Many tree puns can be created with this rule: If a word ends in “t” and the following word begrins with the “ree” sound, then a tree pun can be made. Here are some examples of pairs of words that work – note that there are multiple ways of presenting “tree” in the pun, and some random examples are shown: might rely (might tree lie or might-tree-ly), best resource (best treesources or best tree sources), just read (just treed), cannot recall (cannotreecal or cannot tree call), it reads (it tree-ds), most refreshingly (most treefreshingly or most tree freshingly), brilliant reasoning (brilliant treesoning), must really (must treeally), not remain (not tree main), just return (just tree turn), can’t refuse (can tree fuse), but really (but treeally), most remarkable (mos-tree markable), not retaining (no tree-taining). There are obviously a very large number of these sort of tree puns to be made – far too many to list here.

Momentary → Momentree: “A momentree lapse of concentration was all it took.”

Century → Centree: “It’s been more than a centree since the war.”

Belief → Beleaf: “Beleaf in magic spiritual beings is outdated.”

Disbelief → Disbeleaf: “I had to suspend my disbeleaf.”

Gleeful → Gleaful: “His gleaful expression was the cutest.”

Gleefully → Gleafully: “They gleafully accepted the gifts.”

*ly F* → *-leaf f*: Thousands or perhaps millions of leaf puns can be made with this simple rule: If a word ends in the “ly” sound and if followed by a word starting with “f”, then a leaf pun can be made. Here are some examples of pairs of words that work – note that there are multiple ways of presenting “leaf” in the pun, and some random examples are shown: heartily for (hearti-leaf-or or hearty leaf for), closely from (close-leaf-rom or close-leaf from), nearly five (near-leaf-ive or near-leaf five), practically finished (practica-leaf-inished or practical-leaf finished), truly formidable (tru-leaf-ormidable or true leaf formidable), perfectly familiar (perfect-leaf-amiliar or perfect leaf familiar), nearly fifteen (near-leaf-ifteen or near leaf fifteen), possibly find (possib-leaf find), ghastly face (ghast-leaf-ace or ghast-leaf face), continually from (continua-leaf-rom), carefully fastened (carefu-leaf-astened), slowly from (slow-leaf from), rapidly formed (rapid-leaf-ormed), principally for (principal leaf for), plainly furnished (plain-leaf-urnished), hardly found (hard-leaf-ound), entirely free (entire leaf fresh), perfectly fresh, fiercely forward, nearly fallen, expressly for, terribly frightened, loudly for, swiftly forward. There’s obviously a huuuge number of different pairs of word for which this works. You could also use leaf puns as one or more of those words to create more densely leaf-punned phrases: “She gleaful-leaf frolicked through the meadow.”

Jellyfish → Jel-leaf-ish: “The je-leaf fish glided gently upwards.”

Relief → Releaf: “What a releaf!”

Cauliflower → Cau-leaf-lower: “Cau-leaf flower is a great source of vitamins.”

Amplification → Amp-leaf-ication: “We’ll need more ampleafication to reach the back seats.”

California → Caleafornia: “I’m from Caleafornia.”

Cliff → Cleaf: “It’s an extremely flat cleaf-face.”

Elephant → Eleafant: “Eleafants are herbivores.”

Exemplify → Exampleafy: “This exempleafies a terrible leaf pun.”

Facelift → Faceleaft: “Face-leafts are becoming cheaper by the day.”

Left → Leaf-t: “Turn leaft at Khalin St.”

Lift → Leaf-t: “Take the leaft to the 45th floor.”

Oversimplification → Oversimpleafication: “Your oversimpleafication of the issue is not helpful.”

Shoplifting → Shopleafting: “Shopleafting is still a major problem in many countries.”

Telephone → Teleafone: “You used to call me on the teleafphone.”

Qualification → Qua-leaf-ication: “Do you have the qua-leaf-ications for that?”

Are boring→ Arboring: “Your tree puns arboring.” The term “arbor” refers to an area surrounded and shaded by trees and vines, especially where they are trained over a framework for the purpose of creating such an area. The term can also refer to someone who trims, fells, or cares for trees as a profession.

Facepalm: “His complete ignorance and overconfidence made me want to face-palm, but I remained polite.”

A corny → Acorny: “That was acorny tree pun.”

May pull → Maple: “I maple an all-nighter to get it done.”

Pine: “I’ve been pine-ing for you all week.” Here we’re using the “miss and long for the return of” definition of “pine”.

Opine → O-pine: “She often opined at our meetings.” To “opine” is to “speak up” and declare one’s opinion openly.

Will not → Walnut: “I walnut stand for this!”

Leaves: “She leaves here on Tuesday.”

Leaf: “You should leaf now.”

Stumped: “I’m completely stumped.”

Stomp → Stump: “He was stumping the ground in anger.”

Beach→ Beech: “A lovely summer day at the beech.” A “beech” tree is a type of large deciduous tree.

Sap: “He fell for it! What a sap!” The term “sap” can be slang for “a foolish and gullible person.”

Zap → Sap: “I got a small sap from the electrical switch.”

Slap → Sap: “He sapped me gently on my right cheek.”

Ent*: The “Ents” are a fictional race of large anthropomorphic trees in the Lord of the Rings series. Words starting with “ent” can thus be corny tree puns. Here are a few examples: enter, entry, enterprise, entirely, entrance, entered, entitled, entertainment, entity, enterprise, entailed, entertainer, entwine.

Bitch → Birch: “Yeah, people are a bit birchy at my work.”

Asked → Axed: “Axe, and you shall receive.”

Will owe → Willow: “After this I willow you even more money.”

Saw → Seed: “I seed it with my own eyes!”

Knot: “Can you help me tie this knot?”

Not → Knot: “I will knot put up with this anymore.”

For → Fir: “Fir only a second.” A “fir” tree is an evergreen coniferous tree with needle-shaped leaves, commonly used for timber and resin.

You → Yew: “Yew and me.” A “yew” tree is a coniferous tree that has red berrylike fruits. It can live to a very old age, is poisonous, and is often used for cabinet making.

Popular → Poplar: “Yes, vegan restaurants are becoming very poplar.” A poplar is a species of tall, fast-growing tree.

See the → Cedar: “Cedar forest for the trees.” A “cedar” is any of a number of conifer species which yield fragrant and durable timber.

Wouldn’t → Wooden: “Wooden you think?”

Would → Wood: “Wood you help me out for a while?”

Shady: “There’s some shady character following me.”

Drunk → Trunk: “A bunch of trunk idiots.”

Cops → Copse: “We should call the copse.” A “copse” is a small group of trees (a “thicket” or “grove”).

Alternate → Alder-nate: “It alder-nates between black and white.” An “alder” is a tree of the birch family.

Tapped: “I tapped him on the shoulder.” Some trees (like rubber trees) are “tapped”, meaning they have their sap extracted via a hole in the trunk.

Log: “Make sure to log your hours on the time sheet.”

Limb: “I’m going to go out on a limb here.” and “My limbs feel so heavy.”

Bow → Bough: “Boughing to visitors is polite in my culture.” A “bough” is any of the larger branches of a tree.

Bowl → Bole: “I’ll need a bigger bole.” The “bole” is another term for the trunk of a tree.

Burly: “I saw a burly figure come out of the shadows.” A “burl” or “bur” is deformation or “knot” in the growth of a tree.

Fell: “I fell victim to an online scam.” The term “fell” is a word for “to cut down” when referring to a tree, as in “She felled the tree with her axe.”

I’m → Elm: “Elm not sure if it’s the right thing to do.”

Confer → Conifer: “I need to conifer with my advisers before making a decision.”

Lumber: “He clumsily lumbered over to greet me.” The term “lumber” can refer to slow, heavy, awkward movement.

Can of pee → Canopy: “That thing’s worth less than a can-o’-py.”

Grave → Grove: “You must leave – you are in grove danger.”

Gum: “Stop flapping your gums and get back to work.” and “Chewing gum isn’t allowed here.” The term “gum” can refer to a viscous secretion of some trees that hardens on drying. It may also refer to a tree which has secretes this substance.

Phlegm → Phloem: “I’ve got a cold and a phloemy throat.” The term “phloem” refers to the plant tissue tubes that conduct nutrients around the plant.

Gall: Refers to an abnormal growth on plants and trees, especially in response to the presence of insects or mites. It also mean “bold and impudent behaviour”: “He had the gall to make more tree puns even after I shouted at him to stop.”

Branch: “We need to branch out into other sectors.” and “We’re opening another branch in this town.”

Lifeless → Leafless: “A seemingly leafless figure lay on the beach.”

Life → Leaf: “Well, that’s just leaf I guess.”

Plant: “She planted her feet firmly on the ground, ready to fight.”

Decision → Deciduous: This one is very corny! “Finally, we’ve arrived at a deciduous!”

Shoot: “Shooting animals for sport is cowardly.” Note that a “shoot” in the leafy context refers to a young branch or leaf springing from a stem.

Tree-Related Words

No doubt there are many more puns to be made, so we’ve gathered together a list of tree-related words to help you come up with your own tree puns. If you come up with any good ones, please share them in the comments and we’ll add them to our list!

Tree-Related Phrases

Cliches, idioms and common phrases can often be used to make some subtle puns about the subject of your wordplay. Tree puns are no exception, and so we’ve included a list of all the tree-related phrases that we could find. If you know any more, please share them in the comments!

Bark is worse than it’s bite

Barking up the wrong tree

See the forest for the trees

The root of the problem

Grease one’s palm

Go out on a limb

Branch out

Grass roots movement

Log off / log on

Don’t take any wooden nickels

Little strokes fell great oaks

Must have learned to whisper in a sawmill

Knock on wood

Touch wood

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

Make like a tree and leave

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow

Put on the wooden overcoat

Shiver me timbers

An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

Bust in the chops

By your leave

Don’t be a stick in the mud

Don’t keep a dog and bark yourself

Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

Dumb as a stump

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes

Had me stumped

Have an axe to grind

How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?

In limbo

In the sticks

Let’s tie the knot

Money doesn’t grow on trees

More cliches than you can shake a stick at

Old chestnut

Sleep like a log

Take a leaf out of your book

Turn over a new leaf

Take it or leave it

The short end of the stick

This neck of the woods

Beat the bushes

Beat around the bush

Walk the plank

Tree Pun Images

We’ve collected all the visual tree puns and meme-type puns that we could find and put them all in one place for you. If you’ve found or made another one, please share a link to it in the comments!

Tree Pun Conversations

Pun battles and pun-filled conversations are a common occurrence on the internet, and particularly so for tree puns for some reason. Here we’ve collected some of those iMessage/Messenger/chatroom pun battles for you to do with as you would:

Did this Punpedia entry help you?

That’s all the tree pun material we have for you! Was it helpful? Did you find what you were looking for? If so, great! We’re happy we were able to help. If not, we’d love for you to tell us how this entry could be improved. More visual tree puns? More word play around a certain concept? Punpedia is driven by community suggestions, so we really appreciate your feedback. Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂